I build websites, it's what I do.

Have you ever wondered how difficult it is to build a website? Or manage one? I'll bet there are those of you who struggle changing the ink cartridges on the printer and think "I don't know anything about that matrix stuff!" And that's not a bad thing! I have no idea how to build a house, or construct a ship. All the little things that make up those things - they require different skill sets and many years of experience and knowledge.

Websites are the same as the above examples. A collection of many things, compiled in to one greater thing - the end result.

Your website though, is a little bit more dynamic than the examples. A developer who works with you, should have a full understanding of the abbreviation - CMS. Content. Management. System.

So what is a CMS? To you - a way to drop pictures and text in to pages. To the developer, it means a longer project and less money coming in further down the line. A CMS can mean the difference between hundreds of pounds and tens of thousands of pounds, in the long run. Having one, means you won't need your Web Developer to maintain pages, add in new content, make some adjustments and generally maintain your website. So it's important to explore that route. Not all developers will tell you that, either.

The developer should explore the many different variations of CMS's with you. Each one has strengths and weaknesses. Here are a few of the mainstream CMS's in which you should explore; including a professional opinion of the benefits and pitfalls.

Wordpress

Language: PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor)

Pros: Highly customisable, loaded with features, install and go

Cons: Very slow, always a target for malware, often overkill for what's required

Drupal

Language: PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor)

Pros: I genuinely cannot think of any.

Cons: Wordpress does everything it does; and more.

Joomla!

Language: PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor)

Pros: Big support base

Cons: Much like Drupal - Wordpress does everything it does, and more - and often better.

Umbraco

Language: ASP CLR (Active Server Page, Common Language Runtime)

Pros: High flexible, very commercial orientated, can host multiple websites from the one CMS command centre.

Cons: Written in ASP - very slow, very bulky, changes to the system require a HIGHLY skilled (and expensive) developer.

BetterCMS

Language: ASP CLR (Active Server Page, Common Language Runtime)

Pros: If you are absolutely insistent on running a Windows Environment - this is the CMS to do it in. A really cool 'on-the-page' editor, live as you populate it - makes editing really simple and quite fun.

Cons: Still written in ASP.NET. Will undoubtedly crash at some point for no apparent reason and costs a lot to maintain with a developer. Still the better of the two primary ASP systems.

So what we've established here; is that there are a solid 5 choices of CMS. There are others - MANY others - but, the most common - are your bunch above.

Let's move on to the underdogs. Now, the underdog CMS's are the ones that - well, never really get mentioned anywhere - you'll also notice, if you give that little Wiki link above a little click, that the one I build in... isn't listed.

And I like that. It means, though a bunch of developers do use it - it's fresh, unabused, innovative - and my favourite - unknown.

AnchorCMS.

My website is built in Anchor. Why? Because it's perfect for what I do. There is literally nothing that Anchor cannot do, that the rest of the CMS's above can do - and the best part about it... because it's so light, so nimble and so beautifully written - there's no errors, no bugs, no polluted code from where someone's suggested something and the developers have just hashed it together - it genuinely is... clean.

Now, it's not exactly 'easy' to code in it. It's a very young style of PHP, almost untested territory, but that's what's beautiful about it. The entire website is run out of one PHP file. Models, behaviours and instances are created using it's intricate routing system, and before you know it - you have manifested before your very eyes - the pinnacle of Object Oriented Programming.

The potential of such a CMS though, is unfathomable. So I strongly suggest when you are on the hunt for a new website - question the developer for this CMS. If you can't find one - speak to me. I can grow and expand this CMS like there's no tomorrow; and yet - it's never once displayed any slowing down of the processing time.

I do love this CMS; and I think if your website was built using it - you would too. The finest level of simplicity, without losing a single bit of functionality. Perfect.

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